41 comments:

Calling Josh Marshall an idiot would be an excuse. What he really is, is a partisan hack with no new or honest insights. He feels good about himself but he has no reason to. Who does he think he's helping?

I think the Dems biggest problem is that they don't really have as many women and minorities politicians who seem as serious and capable as Republicans.

Gov. Deval Patrick seems like a sharp enough guy, but he doesn't give off the leadership vibe.

Cory Booker seems to have smarts and leadership, but he's only a mayor.

Hilary is the only plausible Dem female leader.

I can't think of any Latino Dems who can stack up against a Martinez, Rubio, or Ted Cruz.

And the Dems don't have any asians like a Jindal or even a Haley.

What's really surprising about the Dems is that their white guy bench is terrible. Mark Warner is the only one I can think of. O'Malley, the governor of Maryland, seems pretty weak, so he's a distant second.

Marshall isn't saying that Todd was wrong about the plainly obvious fact that the Democrats have no up-and-coming political stars that compare with Love and Martinez.

Marshall is saying Todd is wrong that the Democrats wish they had such stars.

Because the Democrat Party is a party of white men, run by white men for white men. Men like Josh Marshall: Men who received wedgies and swirlies in middle school, and who now spend their energy trying to tear down the accomplishments of those people who pulled their elastic waist-bands up over their heads.

Men who are so deep into the beta-male range, so far from alpha status, that the only way they can score some pussy is to assume political stances deferential to slutty hippy chicks: Free birth control, free abortions, free pot-marijuana.

The white men in control of the Democratic party don't want any uppity minorities upstaging them in front of those hippy chicks.

I have a couple of theories here about why the Republican bench is so much deeper.

One is that they have quasi-term limits in Congress. Every time that the Dems retake the House, the same people take over the same committees. Contrast this with the Republicans, where Paul Ryan is slated to lose his committee chair in the next Congress, despite doing such a great job at it. And, note that when John Kerry was running for President, he was the junior Senator from MA, with 20 years of service. He finally ascended to the senior position with the death of St. Teddy, who apparently helped Kerry get his amnesty and honorable discharge under the Carter Administration. Contrast this with all the Republicans who came into the Senate, served one or two terms, then went on and did something else, such as Fred Thompson, Bill Frist, and my favorite from Colorado, Hank Brown, who went on and ran two of the larger state universities (interim at CU to clean up the mess).

Another part of this is that many of the major Dem politicians are inner city machine politicians, and neither inner city nor machine politician translate well to the national (or, often, even the state) level. The exception here, of course, was Barack Obama, who was able to successfully cover up his machine history.

Third, the minorities in the Dem party often seem to be elected from minority majority (or, is it the other way around) districts, where they neither have to be honest nor mainstream to be reelected. Most of the more notable of them seem to take venality to a new level.

Finally, I think that the Dems' congressional caucuses push their leaders hard to the left - or elevate those on the fringes. (e.g. the difference between Harry Reid, who was pushed by his ambition to the left, and Nancy Pelosi, who besides being dumb as a rock, is a certifiable liberal nutcase). I still can't figure out why they would elevate Debbie Blabbermouth Shultz to be the public mouthpiece for their party.

Cuomo in NY is a possibility, but he is white. And I suspect Villaregoso might have some interest. Both have some degree of name recognition, and it is possible that Cuomo might actually accomplish something in NY state.

Another part of this is that the Democratic party, at least nationally, and in a lot of the states is the furthest thing from a grass-roots organization. You have the privileged elite, and you have the sheep voting as ordered, with the ruling elite supposedly elected to take care of the sheep.

Instead, the national party is a collection of interest groups that have seats at the table. These include unionized employees (and, now days, esp. unionized govt. workers, and more esp. teachers), blacks, greens, feminazis, academics, maybe even Hispanics, Jews (in the past at least), Hollywood, trial lawyers, etc. The groups are rewarded, to some extent, by how much they bring to the table - the unions and the blacks bring votes, the Jews, Hollywood (to the extent they are different), and trial lawyers bring the money, etc.

The problem that I see is that each of these constituencies has somewhat of a veto when it comes to policy and, to some extent, national electability. So, they can't include tort reform in health care reform legislation, and can't reduce government spending because of all the government employees who would lose their jobs, etc. Similarly, most of the country doesn't want to require free abortions and contraceptives be paid for by religious groups religiously opposed to such (unless, they are Islamic, where then they get waivers). Yet, the feminazis forced the Obama Administration to offend the RC Church and its most observant members by this.

So, major Dem politicians are required by these constituencies to take positions on abortion, government size and function, deficit spending, global warming, CAFE standards, etc. that are opposed by a majority of Americans. And, if they don't, they are mostly booted.

And, yes, there is some of this on the Republican side, but I would suggest far less, esp. with the grass-roots Tea Party flexing its muscle these last two elections.

Cuomo in NY is a possibility, but he is white... Both have some degree of name recognition, and it is possible that Cuomo might actually accomplish something in NY state.

He is a hereditary NY politician who married a Kennedy, and those things alone will probably guarantee that he can't win a national election. Get nominated? Sure. But win? I think unlikely. The same things that make his salable in NY state make him almost unsalable outside the NE and pacific coast.

Bottom line -- if the D's had a better bench, we surely wouldn't see as much of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as we do now. If it were 1972 or even 2002, someone of her (ahem) stature would be a backbencher at best. Instead, she's one of the primary faces and voices of the party.

This is more of that cognitive dissonance thing. Lefties pretend that if they ignore diverse and talented Republican speakers, they don't exist. And where will they find Dem govs, for example, who can boast of restoring solvency w/o raising taxes.

Denial = no cog dis. Such is the mental illness of the secular progressives, et al.

Cuomo's biggest problem is that he's governor of New York. That state is hurting and has major problems. To his credit, he's been trying a little bit to get the Dems there to do some reforms, but he hasn't been successful. You know you're state is fucked up when Andrew Cuomo is trying to tug you to the right.

So what record could he even run on in four years? I managed to keep a very fucked up state from becoming totally fucked up?

I'm loving the elevation of Villaraigosa to DNC chair. Living here in SoCal I'm pretty familiar with this moron. And believe me, he is a moron. To call him vacuous would be an insult to the word vacuous. If he is the best the Dems can do Latino-wise, then Chuck Todd is definitely in the right.

If it really was such a stupid statement, I'm sure Josh Marshall could have (and still could) list the Democrats' deeper and more diverse bench, right?

Right?

But here's why the Democrats have no bench:

1) Fewer executive opportunities than Republicans. Republicans have 29 governors to 20 Dem governors...and they are slated to lose another 3-4 to the GOP this election season.

2) Poor VP choices over the last few decades. Al Gore lost his Presidency and has made himself politically irrelevant. Edwards demonstrated he was a slimeball and has made himself politically irrelevant. Hillary Clinton has given up on becoming President. Biden is too old and too gaffe-prone. If Hillary had won the nomination, Obama would be considered a great rising star, chomping at the bit to run in 2016 one way or the other (whether succeeding Clinton or taking on the incumbent GOP POTUS). And Hillary might have chosen someone like Booker or Warner to be Veep...they'd have a semi-deep bench.

3) The Democrat Governors have done significantly worse in their jobs than the GOP Governors. GOP-led states have a better economy and lower unemployment than pretty much all the Dem governors. Hard to be a rising star/part of a deep bench if your economic record as an executive is mediocre or worse.

"You would have thought, however, that in Florida they could have found at least a few people with a tan to fill the bleachers. I’ve seen more color in a pack of loose leaf paper." http://margaretandhelen.com/2012/08/31/i-wonder-if-clint-eastwoods-imaginary-friend-speaks-to-michele-bachmanns-imaginary-friend/.

Tyrone Slothrop deserves major props for being the only person in this thread so far who bothered to spell "Villaraigosa" correctly. Please, people. If you don't know it, at least Google it or something.